“Dog-toe,” said Dell, as he swung out of the saddle, “you forgot more than I ever knew.  You told me that I was wrong, and you pled with me like a brother, and I wouldn’t listen to you.  I wonder if he’ll forgive me?” meditated Dell, as he opened the stable door.

The horse hurriedly entered and nickered for his feed.  “Yes, you shall have an extra ration of corn,” answered his rider.  “And if you’ll just forgive me this once, the lesson you taught me to-night will never be forgotten.”

It proved to be early in the evening—­only eight o’clock.  Even though the lesson was taught by a dumb animal, it was worth its cost.  Before offering to sleep, Dell collected all the articles that were to make up the pack, foddered the horses, set the alarm forward an hour, and sought his blankets for a short rest.  Several times the howling of the wind awoke him, and unable to sleep out the night, he arose and built a fire.  The necessity of a pack saddle robbed him of his own, and, substituting a blanket, at the appointed hour before dawn he started, with three days’ rations for man and horse.  The snow had ceased falling, but a raw March wind blew from the northwest, and taking his course with it, he reached the divide at daybreak.  A struggling sun gave him a bearing from time to time, the sand dunes were sighted, and angling across the course of the wind, the trail of the herd was picked up in the mushy snow.  A bull was overtaken, resting comfortably in a buffalo wallow; three others were passed, feeding with the wind, and finally the sun burst forth, revealing the brakes of the Prairie Dog.

Where the cattle had drifted barely two miles an hour, sustenance was following at a five-mile gait.  The trail freshened in the snow, narrowed and broadened, and near the middle of the forenoon the scattered herd was sighted.  The long yell of warning was answered only by a tiny smoke-cloud, hanging low over the creek bed, and before Joel was aware of his presence, Dell rode up to the very bank under which the fire was burning.

“How do you like an all-night drift?” shouted Dell.  “How do snowballs taste for breakfast?”

“Come under the cliff and unpack,” soberly replied Joel.  “I hope this is the last lesson in winter herding; I fail to see any romance in it.”

The horses were unsaddled and fed.  “Give an account of yourself,” urged Dell, as the brothers returned to the fire.  “How did you make out during the night?”

“I just humped my back like the other cattle and took my medicine,” replied Joel.  “An Indian dances to keep warm, and I sang.  You have no idea how good company cattle are.  One big steer laid his ear in Rowdy’s flank to warm it.  I took him by the horn any number of times and woke him up; he was just staggering along asleep.  I talked to all the lead cattle, named them after boys we knew at school, and sometimes they would look up when I called to them.  And the queerest thing